Table Of ContentLászló Erdős
Green
Heroes
From Buddha to
Leonardo DiCaprio
Green Heroes
László Erdős
Green Heroes
From Buddha to Leonardo DiCaprio
László Erdős
MTA-DE Lendület Functional and Restoration Ecology Research Group, Debrecen
Institute of Ecology and Botany MTA Centre for Ecological Research
Vácrátót, Hungary
ISBN 978-3-030-31805-5 ISBN 978-3-030-31806-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31806-2
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To Dolly
Acknowledgements
Writing this book was a challenging yet highly rewarding journey. It was a journey
on which I received continuous emotional, technical, and financial support from
many sources.
I owe the greatest debt to my late mother, who, despite tremendous personal and
financial difficulties, created the happiest and most democratic family environment
I can possibly imagine. She fostered my interest in animals and the natural world
and helped me find ways to become an activist. My mother taught history and litera-
ture at a secondary school but also was a great animal lover and an amateur natural-
ist. Her love and wisdom are missed every minute of every day.
I am especially grateful to my wife, Dolly, for her invaluable comments and sug-
gestions on the manuscript. I also thank her for her love and patience. Without her
full support and encouragement, I would never have been able to write this book.
I would like to thank my father and brother for their assistance during this and
my earlier projects.
I am grateful to Mike Cooke from Ambios Ltd for his linguistic advice while
finalising the manuscript. Special thanks are due to Simon Roper, the Director of
Ambios Ltd, for his support in preparing the book.
I owe a great deal to Dr. László Körmöczi, Dr. György Kröel-Dulay, Dr. Péter
Török, Dr. Zoltán Botta-Dukát, Dr. László Garamszegi, and Dr. András Takács-
Sánta, who made it possible for me to focus on my book and allowed to develop and
teach university courses on the subject.
For their useful comments on how to improve the manuscript, I want to express
my gratitude to Dr. Zoltán Bátori, Dr. Judit Bódis, Viktória Cseh, Dr. János Csiky,
Mira Devánszki, Dr. Erika Farkas Csamangó, Viktória Füzesi, Dr. László Gallé, Dr.
Róbert Gallé, Krisztina Gellény, Dr. Balázs Kevey, Dr. Martin Magnes, Dr. György
Málovics, Dr. Katalin Margóczi, Dr. Zsolt Molnár, Dr. Róbert Pál, Dr. Zsolt Palkó,
Dr. Károly Penksza, Dr. Stephen Puryear, Dr. Petr Smýkal, Dr. János I. Tóth, and Dr.
Csaba Tölgyesi.
vii
viii Acknowledgements
My work was supported by the National Youth Excellence Scholarship, which
made me possible to obtain materials for writing this book.
Last but not least, I want to express appreciation to all green heroes, those who
are mentioned in this book and those who are not, for their tireless and unselfish
work to protect animals, the natural world, and our environment.
Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Part I H eroes for Animals
Do Not Kill – Buddha’s Compassion for Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Saint Francis of Assisi – The Patron Saint of Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Saint Francis of Paola – Humility and Non-violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Animals Are Back – The Ethics of Jeremy Bentham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Pioneers of Animal Advocacy in the Nineteenth and the Early
Twentieth Centuries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Charles Darwin – Evolution and the Fall of Human Superiority . . . . . . . . 27
Reverence for Life – Albert Schweitzer’s Biocentrism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Cleveland Amory and the Fund for Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Spokesmen for Animals – Richard Ryder, Peter Singer,
and Tom Regan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
How Henry Spira Put Animal Liberation into Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Ingrid Newkirk, Alex Pacheco, and PETA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Talking Apes – Ambassadors of the Animal Kingdom
in the Human World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Parrots, Dolphins, Seals – And What They Have Taught Us. . . . . . . . . . . . 67
In the Front Line of Animal Advocacy – From Brigitte Bardot
to Lek Chailert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
ix
x Contents
Part II H eroes for Nature
Beginnings of the Conservation Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Aldo Leopold and the Land Ethic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Under the Banner of the Giant Panda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Arne Naess and the Deep Ecology Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Living with Big Cats – The Story of Joy and George Adamson . . . . . . . . . 97
The Modern Noah – Gerald Durrell’s Mission to Save
Endangered Animals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Farley Mowat Never Cried Wolf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Jane Goodall – A Lifelong Optimist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
No One Loved Gorillas More – The Life and Legacy
of Dian Fossey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Biruté Galdikas and the People of the Forest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Jacques-Yves Cousteau – In Awe of the Oceans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Mike Pandey – Using the Power of Motion Picture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
David Attenborough – The Grand Old Man of Natural
History Filmmaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Paul Watson – The Daredevil of Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Part III Heroes for the Environment
The Environmental Movement Is Born – Rachel Carson
and Silent Spring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Environmentalism Gaining Momentum – Denis Hayes
and Earth Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
The Greenpeace-Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Chico Mendes – A Martyr for the Rainforest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Missing in Action – The Story of Bruno Manser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Oil Is Blood – The Fight of Ken Saro-Wiwa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
A Passion for Trees – Wangari Maathai and the Green
Belt Movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Vandana Shiva – Defending Traditional Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Contents xi
Tree Huggers and Hunger Strikers – Environmental
Leadership in India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
The Sacrifice of Berta Cáceres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Don’t Waste It! – Rossano Ercolini, Bea Johnson,
and Ian Kiernan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Al Gore – The Climate Crusader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
Arnold Schwarzenegger – The Strong Man of Environmentalism . . . . . . 213
Greening Hollywood – The Activism of Leonardo DiCaprio . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
